Current Affairs Today – April, 30th, 2018 | Latest News and Updates

INDIAN AFFAIRS

NHAI Inks Pact with Macquarie

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has did signed the agreement with the Macquarie for road projects under the highway monetisation drive, according to an official.

“Agreement (has been signed) with Macquarie for the first bundle (of highway projects) — USD 1.5 billion — one of the highest FDI in highways,” a top NHAI official said.

“We are happy that market has valued our assets one and a half times higher than our expectations. This bodes well for asset recycling to be used as a key resource generator for financing infrastructure in India,” Member Finance NHAI, Rohit Kumar Singh had said earlier.

Dalmia Bharat Signs MoU to Maintain Heritage Sites

Dalmia Bharat Limited had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Tourism Ministry in term to start the work at the Red Fort and Gandikota Fort (Andhra Pradesh) under the ‘Adopt a Heritage’ project.

By this it has become the first to be as the part of this, Dalmia Bharat will look after the operations and the maintenance of these heritage sites for the next five years.

“Adopting a heritage project is a unique endeavour by the Ministry of Tourism, which envisions in developing monuments, heritage and tourist sites across India to enhance their tourism potential and cultural importance. We look forward to adding value to India’s heritage sites in every possible manner,” said Puneet Dalmia, Managing Director, Dalmia Bharat Group.

“Such initiatives will enhance the tourist experience, resulting in more footfall from both domestic and foreign tourists. With our efforts we will make Indian heritage sites a symbol of pride for all of us”, said Sundeep Kumar, Executive Director, Dalmia Bharat.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Environment Ministry declares all protected areas plastic free zones

Greenpeace India has been turn as the change in the term of the environment ministry declaring all protected areas in the country ‘plastic-free zones’ as a “symbolic initiative” and said that there should be the production of the plastic should be stop to get real reduction in such wastes.

“It’s a symbolic initiative, as ‘protected areas’ cover only 5 per cent of land area. Plastic consumption needs to be reduced at the source and production should be controlled to achieve real reduction in plastic waste,” Climate and Energy Campaigner of Greenpeace India Nandikesh Sivalingam said.

“Increasing public revulsion over single-use plastics should be seen by policy makers and regulators as a sign that citizens want from their leaders’ better protection against the continuing onslaughts of an industry committed to pursuing bigger profit margins at the expense of a planet already drowning in plastic,” he said.

Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan had on Friday tweeted,”@moefcc bans plastic in any form in all protected areas and declare them Plastic Free Zones ahead of #WorldEnvironmentDay2018.” “Directs states & UTs to organise awareness campaigns to sensitise people. Protected areas in Bengal and Odisha are already plastic free zones,” he had said.

New frog species Fejervarya goemchi named after Goa

A large-sized mottled brown frog, ‘Fejervarya goemchi’, which has the dimension of 41 to 46mm and known for its long croaking ‘trook, trook’ call is the newest addition to the 30-odd list of amphibians documented in Goa.

“This is a much larger frog than the tiny fejerverayan frog ‘Fejervarya gomantaki’ described in 2015,” says Nirmal Kulkarni, herpetologist and team member.

“Many of these large-sized terrestrial fejervaryan frogs sit next to water bodies making calls to attract females for mating and breeding,” Kulkarni said.

“The amphibian genus Fejervarya of the family Dicroglossidae are commonly known as either ‘cricket frogs’ or ‘fejervaryan frogs’. Though most of these frogs are terrestrial, they need water bodies to continue breeding and survival,” the study states.

BANKING AND FINANCE

PM Modi Launches Van Dhan Scheme to Help Increase Tribal Income

The Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi launched the Van Dhan Scheme of Ministry of Tribal Affairs and TRIFED on 14th April, 2018 during the celebrations of Ambedkar Jayanti at Bijapur, Chattisgarh. Emphasizing the important role of value addition in increasing tribal incomes, he stated that Van Dhan, Jan Dhan and Gobar-Dhan Schemes had the potential to change the tribal-rural economic system. All these three schemes in tandem need to be promoted for this purpose by the State Governments.

The establishment of “Van Dhan Vikas Kendra” is for providing skill upgradation and capacity building training and setting up of primary processing and value addition facility. This first model Van DhanVikas Kendra in Bijapuris being implemented for training of 300 training beneficiaries with a total outlay of Rs.43.38 lakhs for training, providing equipments & tools for primary level processing and infrastructure & building for housing the Kendra. This Kendra to start with will have processing facility for Tamarind brick making, Mahua flower storage facility and chironjee cleaning and packaging.

Under Van Dhan, 10 Self Help Groups of 30 Tribal gatherers is constituted. They are then trained and provided with working capital to add value to the products, which they collect from the jungle. Working under the leadership of Collector these groups can then market their products not only within the States but also outside the States. Training and technical support is provided by TRIFED. It is proposed to develop 30,000 such centres in the country.

Online search engine Google is the most trusted Internet brand in India, followed by Facebook, as per the TRA Brand Trust Report 2018

Online search engine Google Internet has become the most trusted brand in India, followed by Facebook, a report said on Wednesday.

“With 1.2 trillion searches per year, it (Google) has become the first port of call for all things on the Internet,” the TRA Brand Trust Report 2018 said.

“Internet brands yet have much scope for disruption. Initially Internet disrupted the traditional businesses, and now new models are threatening other Internet businesses with better and more efficient models,” Chandramouli said.

“Only the Internet brands with a prudent business model, one which focusses on brand trust along with profits and growth will survive the next couple of years,” he added.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

HC allows nominations via WhatsApp for Panchayat polls in WB

In term to take the very important move, the Calcutta High Court has has given the permission for the nine independents to file their nominations via WhatsApp for the West Bengal Panchayat elections. The court directed the Election Commission to give the time to the nine nominations filed on WhatsApp by the independent candidates as valid.

The petitioners had said that they has unable to submit their nominations physically. They has send the nominee by the WhatsApp to the Bhangar-II block development officer.

The HC has said to give the nominee by the SEC on Monday to help these nine persons file their nominations and has said them to file the papers at the Alipore sub-divisional officer’s office.

In there has the one candidate that is the Sharmistha Choudhury, told the HC on Tuesday that they were made to wait at the office; miscreants later assaulted them and snatched their documents and stopped them from filing their papers. But she and the others sent the BDO their papers via WhatsApp.

AWARDS AND RECOGNITION

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed as the Christine Schraner Burgener of Switzerland at the new of the envoy of the Myanmar. Before her appointed there has the, Burgener was the Ambassador of Switzerland to the Germany since the year 2015. Burgener has more than the 25 years of experience in diplomacy has been doing the service as the various high-level government positions in the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric had told reporters that the UN hopes the visits will help “refocus the attention of the international community on the plight of the Rohingya refugees who have fled to Bangladesh and the continuous need to fund the humanitarian operations.”

Since August in the year 2017, nearly 700,000 minority Muslim Rohingyas has been leave the Myanmar across the border into Bangaldesh’s Cox’s Bazar, they has joint the various of the hundred thousand more that were already settled there in overcrowded camps.

Guterres has told that there has the 150,000 Rohingya refugees, who fled from Myanmar into crowded camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar are living in flood-prone areas and must be relocated ahead of the coming rainy season.